Teacher Evaluation Systems: How Market-Based Discourses have

(re)Defined Teachers and Teacher Quality

Jessica Holloway-Libell, Ph.D.Arizona State University

“We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.”

“Teachers are the heart and soul of our education system– and our [economic] success as a country is entirely dependent on your success as a teacher,” (Duncan, 2012).

“I do think that if if we have a strong music program, that's

going to bleed out to the rest of the school and help everybody.

Either by bringing more kids that like band, you know, or having, I

don't know I don't think band makes you smarter but I think it

attracts smarter kids, so that could up that score.”

“[W]hat other job are you not based on what you produce?

There's no other job that you're not measured on that

standard, and, like it may be unfair, it may be inaccurate at times, but that's all you have is

what you produce, and you have to produce the best

product that you can, which is who can perform on a test.”

“One of my big pet peeves in [with my last state] was that

they couldn't get rid of the bad teachers. Well, here, just that concept of you're constantly being evaluated and you're

constantly evaluating yourself, like usually the bad teachers will leave because they don't want to be evaluated, so to me it just weeds them out right off the bat.

Thank you.

Jessica.L.Holloway@asu.edu